Naples: The grande dame of Amalfi

An introduction to Naples

Naples is more femme fatale than romcom sweetheart,
oozing a sex appeal that steals every scene from her prettified
rivals. Antonia Quirke salutes Italy's southern
star...

'God owed me this,' said the 18th-century German archaeologist
Winckelmann of his beloved Italy, 'for I had suffered so much in my
youth.' If people travel to Florence and Venice as a way of
visiting other, more ravishing centuries, they usually stop hot and
anxious (Naples has an age-old reputation for roughness) with their
bags at the ferry, watching out of the corner of their eyes as men
with shaved heads and tattoos of saints up their legs play cards,
occasionally breaking off to babble in bliss when women trip by,
pushing prams, carrying newborns (Neapolitan men, however butch,
love babies. Especially other people's).

Art Nouveau bandstand in the public
gardens of Villa Communale, Chiaia